"This is amazing! We can win! With weapons like that! Killing titans will be as easy as breathing!" Marlo shouts at the dinner table, "You're so damn easily excitable. You know now less than that from just joining the Scouts." Jean looks at him, he was a new member of the Scouts, after helping us and realising how corrupt the MPs were, he finally broke off and joined our regiment, "Says you Mr. I wanted to be an interior police back in cadet core. Yeah, I still remember." I slap Jean's head as I sat down, he grumbles, "Oh yeah, didn't Hitch try to make you stay?" I rip my bread into smaller chunks and throw it into my mouth, "Wait Hitch? How come?" He looks at me, "Cause Hitch is a thirty girl and she thinks you're a tall glass of water. Trust me, when it comes to love, things don't skip past me, after all, I got someone with a personality of a wet sock to tie the knot with me." I threw another piece of bread into my mouth, everyone snickered, "Can't say I follow but Hitch did tell me off before saying I wasn't cut out to be a real soldier. She told me I should stop acting cool and just coast along in life. I thought she was better than that, so I told her I was wrong about her." He says blankly, I blinked, "Idiot." I cross my legs up and groaned, "Asshole." "Are you really that dumb Marlo?" "No brain under that bowl cut." Everyone mutters at him, "Calm down he didn't say anything wrong." Eren says and drinks his soup, he was right so we all shut up, "Well I hate to be that person but the only person as excited as you here are the new fresh-faced recruits. I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover but look at all you guys. You've matured well." I look at our table and looked at all the faces of our squad, "Give us a break, you think you're some hard veteran now?" A boy turns around and laughs at me, "Oh my bad, I've only served about ten years in our regiment and you're looking at your new commander right here boys." I do my trademark whistle and click, he stares at me, "Hang on, are you serious?" Armin looks at me, "Yeah Erwin appointed me new Commander of the Scout regiment once he's ready to hand it down, to be completely honest, I'm scared, I don't want Erwin to leave. I don't think I can ever fill shoes that big..." I look down at my dinner, "Anywho!" I rip the crust off my bread and started contently eating, totally forgetting what I said a second ago.
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They all sweatdrop, "That's pretty rude, we were in the hundred and forth same as you, and besides, we're not the only ones excited for this, everyone in the walls is, we're finally taking back Wall Maria." He stands up and a group of his stands up after him, "Funny, you can't even stand up a fight on your own without your own personal possy." I continue eating and ignoring him, my table hid their faces in their hand to try to suppress their laughter, "Can you piss off? I want to eat my dinner, besides..." I snap my cracker and continued eating, "This is delicious!" I had a content look on my face as I chewed, the squad looks at me and groaned, I was holing my own for as long as I could, as best as I could until my childish side came back out, "But she's right, can you leave? If you really want to know, want us to tell you?" Jean glares at them, he takes a step back, "Well there is something different about you guys... I can see it in your faces." He gulps, "Maybe I'll ask later." He walks off, "Well, I'm out too then." Connie stands up, "Huh? You too?" Sasha looks at him, "Well tomorrow is meant to be a prep day so I want to go back to my village tomorrow morning, there's a chance I might find something new there g'night." Connie takes his plates and brings them to the sink, "Think we can turn Connie's mum back to normal someday? I mean... it's not impossible right?" Sasha looks at her soup, "Well... if our knowledge of titans continues to improve then yeah. Maybe." Armin nods, "Like a nightmare." Eren mumbles, we look at him, "So much as happened that I haven't had time to question it, who do you think we're fighting against? The thing is, I've always hated the titans but what if it's just people being tormented by some nightmare? For a time at least, I was one of them myself." He says, "Eren!" Mikasa snaps him back into reality, "You still have bread and soup left, you shouldn't be talking till you finish your meal." She says, "Got it. You're right, sorry." Eren takes a breath in, "Get it together Eren, enough with the sad mumbling already, it's all you do these days, you know what you should be worried about. That guy you saw, from the memories you were given when Reiss and Historia touched you. You said you saw a Scout that must've known your dad right?" Jean asks, "Yeah. I think he might've been with my dad when the wall fell. If he's alive he'll know something, he seems so familiar, I can't shake the feeling I've known him from somewhere," Eren touches his head, "You mean familiar to you or just your dad?" Armin asks, "Me I think." Eren thinks, "It might help if you smack yourself in the head." Sasha says, "Yeah, you should try that out, you know what else might be helpful? If instead of holding hands with Historia you got a headbutt from the Commandant." Jean says, I snickered at the memory, "If that'd help then-" Eren's eyes widen, he suddenly stands up and we look at him, "That's who I saw with my dad, it's Commandant Sadies!" He says, we all gasped.
The entire squad galloped to the cadet core training camp alone with Hanji, Commandant Sadies was the twelfth commander of the Scouts regiment and Commander Erwin's predecessor, it's been a long while since I've last seen him. "Commandant Sadies." Eren says, he turns around and Eren gives him a salute. "What's the matter Braus? Not gonna sit?" He looks at her, we were all in the meeting room, "No! I'm quite fine standing here sir!" She stiffened up, she was probably still traumatised of him, I couldn't blame her, "Let's see, if I recall back you back in here a lot when I was about to chew you out. It's only been a handful of months and yet I barely recognise you kids." He looks around the room, "So, Commander Sadies, oh wait, it's Commandant now. We should be preparing to recapture Wall Maria but tell me, why do you think we came to talk to you instead?" Hanji looks at him, he looks at Eren and Eren stares straight back, "Eren, you look like your mother in almost every way, however, those daggers I see in your eyes, they're your fathers." He says, Eren stands up, "Tell me about him, tell me everything you know," Eren leans on the table, "I don't know much at all, not in the grand scheme of things, that said, I'll tell you a completely useless story for Humanity. I remember seeing him outside the walls, was it the truth or a lie? He said he couldn't remember why he was outside the walls, all of his memories were lost everything except for his name Grisha Yeager. He came into this world not knowing about anything. After I found you, I carried you back unconscious back to the shelter and left. And with that, that's everything I know." Sadies looks at him, everyone was silent, "So that's it, I see." Eren's eyes were wide, "Now I know the real reason you resigned, not to atone for all the soldiers you killed but because you're not a special snowflake just a delusional self centred child." Hanji goes on, "Lay off Hanji." I say, "You had no right to keep this to yourself. Just to spare your own ego we pledged to give our lives and our hearts! For the good of mankind!" Hanji stands up and slams her hand on the table, "Please let it go Hanji. Just like Commandant said, I was never special. Looks like I was just the son of a man who was. That's all there is to it." Eren says quietly, Sadies sighed, "You were always special, your mother knew it, your father knew it. That's why when you arrived at the Cadet core, I made sure it was the hardest it could ever be, asked Captain Levi to break your ODM rig, I tried but in the end ti all came to nothing, I couldn't change a thing. I'm merely a bystander." He says.
The squad all left after Sadie's office. Levi and I had to head to a Commander meeting, "Seems I'm late. Sorry, have you had any luck finding out what's in the container?" Darius sits down, I had the syringe box in my hand, the one Kenny gave Levi, I shake my head, "I'm afraid with our technology we can't dig much deeper but we have a vague idea based off assumptions. From what Eren and Historia have said, it's probably some kind of human bodily fluid, however, vapourises when coming in contact with air making further analysis harder to explore. Whoever made it must've had technology much more superior to ours. I can't imagine how the Reiss family managed to do it." I sigh, "In that case, rather than tamper with it we should use it with our current case." PIxis offers, "But to who should we entrust it? To you Erwin?" Darius looks at him, "No, with my wound it would be a poor choice." He clutches the empty sleeve, the syringe, it belongs to someone who is elite. Levi. Will you accept it?" Erwin looks at him, "If it's an order just say so, why are you asking?" He looks up at him, I fiddle with the lint in my pocket, "When we need to use it, it might not be planned, we'll be relying on you to make the decision quickly with little deliberation. Judging when and whom to use it on will be your responsibility. Will you accept it?" Erwin asks again, "If this dream of yours comes true what will you do then?" Levi asks, "I won't, not until it happens." Erwin stares at him, "Alright, I'll do it." Levi nods, I shut the lid and slide it across the table to him, he takes it and puts it in his pocket.
